Smith undergraduates and alumnae set new
records in 2003 with the number of prestigious scholarly
prizes they captured in fellowship competitions. The fellowships, announced
in the
spring as the semester was nearing completion, reached an
unprecedented total of 32, including a Smith record of eight Fulbrights,
three DAAD
fellowships for alumnae and one DAAD for an undergraduate,
as well as several Smith firsts -- among them the selection of a Smith
student as a Goldman Sachs Global Leader and the awarding of a Rotary
World Peace
Scholarship to a Smith alumna.

Congratulating the winners,
President Carol T. Christ said, "Your success
both enriches you, in providing means and opportunity to study, and enriches
the college. It demonstrates in the judgment of people outside the college what
we know inside -- the extraordinary quality of our students and the excellence
of a Smith education. Wherever you pursue your studies, I hope that the things
you have learned at Smith continue to enrich your life."

The Rotary World
Peace Scholarship went to Electra Gorski '99, who is the
first Smith alumna known to have received this award. She will use it to complete
a master's in public administration in Tokyo, Japan.

Other Smith winners
were Heather Dyson and Eva LaDow, both rising seniors, who were among 250
undergraduates nationwide to receive scholarships for the
2003-04
academic year from the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education
Foundation. The scholarship is intended to encourage excellence in science
and mathematics. Dyson, a math major, plans to pursue a doctorate in theoretical
mathematics. LaDow, a neuroscience major, plans a doctorate in pharmacology.

The fellowships and grants program of the
Office of International Study guides students through the application
process. Professors and administration mentors
volunteer as fellowship mentors. When Carrie Gaiser '03J -- an Ada
Comstock Program Scholar, religion major and former professional ballet dancer -- won
the Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in Humanistic Studies, she commended her
on-campus Smith mentors.

"I want to say how grateful I am to
Justina Gregory, my Mellon faculty mentor, and to Don Andrew, the director
of fellowships and grants, and to all
the faculty of the religion department, who have all supported me in
ways too numerous to list," Gaiser wrote in an e-mail. She enters
a doctoral program in performance studies at the University of California,
Berkeley, this fall.

Smith sophomore Lauren Wolfe, too, said
it was the Smith community that
steered her toward winning the competitive Goldman Sachs Global Leader
award. She
is the first Smith student ever to win this distinction and one of 20
undergraduates nationwide selected for the award and participation in
a program that trains
university students for global leadership roles. "The Smith community
fosters the ability for women to pursue their goals," she said. "If
I did not live in such an amazingly supportive community, I do not believe
that I would
ever have been able to achieve what I have."

Students interested in fellowships
ideally begin the pursuit in February each year. For more
information, visit
www.smith.edu/fellowships.